


The Tadfield Secondary Players

by attheborder, malicegeres



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Book/Radio/TV Crossover, Canon Crossover, Comedy, Community Theatre, Crack Treated Seriously, Drama, Framing Story, Getting Together, Incorporates 1992 Shitscript, Into The Crowleyverse, Love Confessions, M/M, Sorry Not Sorry, inspired by the Ember Island Players
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:54:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22276678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attheborder/pseuds/attheborder, https://archiveofourown.org/users/malicegeres/pseuds/malicegeres
Summary: Colin "Greasy" Johnson's aspirations as a prodigy playwright are put to the test by a panel of judges.After all, who better to evaluate a play about the apocalypse, than an angel and a demon who were really there? Even better: three pairs of angels and demons, each from a slightly different universe.Boundaries will be pushed. The limits of theatrical good taste will be tested. Narratives will be deconstructed. Vomit-inducing quippy one-liners will be dished out. From the mists of the multiverse, GOOD OMENS: A STAGEPLAY will arise. And nothing will ever be the same...
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 247
Kudos: 411
Collections: the Good Omens Shitscript Cinematic Universe





	1. Chapter 1

A year had passed since the events of the Apocalypse That Wasn’t To Be, and it was summer again—the first summer of secondary school. Everyone had changed in some way. Wensleydale was a foot taller, as spindly as one of the stickbugs he’d gone on about the summer before. Brian had lost at least a layer of dirt since he started his bar mitzvah tutoring, and Pepper had only leaned into her tomboyishness further as she realized it attracted the right sort of girl at school. 

Adam, for his part, had experienced as many internal changes as external. He’d made overtures of peace toward Greasy—sorry,  _ Colin _ Johnson and his gang. [1]

It was like this, in Adam’s mind: having a gang was alright when you were in primary school, but when you were nearly a teenager it started taking on a very different connotation. Besides, once you’d gone right up against Heaven and Hell, it felt pointless to go on bothering with petty rivalries. It wasn’t really all that fun anymore, and besides, they were all older now, practically  _ adults! _ It was time to let other children take their place.

All this newfound maturity, of course, didn’t mean they always got  _ along. _ The group formerly known as the Johnsonites had missed out on a lot of the Them’s most important bonding moments (like the End of the End of the World, for example), and, feeling left out, they had a tendency to act as though they’d been there.

“The Devil wasn’t there!” Pepper shouted. They were sitting around in the Pit, which was feeling more crowded every day as their respective circles of friends (and the bodies thereof) grew bigger.

“Was too!” said Jacob, one of the other ex-Johnsonites. “You can’t have an Apocalypse without the Devil there! Where did Adam come from, if the Devil wasn’t there?”

Zacharias, another former Johnsonite, frowned at Adam. “Where were you even born, anyway? I mean, do you know who your  _ real  _ mum is and all that?”

Adam shrugged uncomfortably. “I’ve just got my mum. You know, the one I live with. She’s plenty real. I don’t reckon it matters who the other one was.” He stopped, feeling uncomfortably vulnerable. Then, recovering, he crossed his arms petulantly and added, “Anyway, I stopped the Devil showing up. That’s the whole reason there’s still a world.”

“Well,  _ that’s _ boring,” said Amber, the third Johnsonite-no-longer. “I mean... wouldn’t it have been better if the Devil showed up? That’d be  _ way  _ more exciting.”

“Yeah!” said Zacharias, eyes afire with inspiration. “And— and a creepy old pier! With a— a clown box, that has a little devil in it!”

“Good one, Zach,” said Jacob, nodding sagely, a grizzled old Hollywood producer in the body of a twelve-year-old.

“Hold on. Why would it be at a pier?” asked Wensleydale, his nose wrinkling with distaste. “We’re in Oxfordshire. There aren’t any piers around here, and anyway, it happened at the airbase.”

Zacharias was getting worked up. “I’m just saying, a spooky old pier would be wicked! And a scary carnival, yeah, and— and  _ knives,  _ and—” 

Brian, who’d been blowing a large bubble with his gum, popped it loudly and interrupted, “Yeah, but  _ that’s  _ not what happened. What  _ happened _ was, we all saved the world, and that was plenty wicked.”

There was a lazy shifting position on a new stack of milk crates, constructed relatively recently. Colin lacked Adam’s gravitas, but lately his mum had signed him up for theater classes, and he was starting to approach Adam’s level, if somewhat asymptotically. The other children fell silent, the former Johnsonites out of a sense of duty, and the former Them because they knew it was the polite thing to do.

“I bet,” he said slowly, like a great Shakespearean, “ _ we _ could do a better Apocalypse.” 

Adam glowered across the Pit from his throne. “How? It’s not happening again, and it’s not like  _ you’re _ the Antichrist. There can’t be  _ another _ one.” [2]

“We could put on a play. I’ll write it, and you can use your powers to make sets and special effects and all that.”

Adam shook his head, the picture of abstinent maturity. “You know I gave all that up.”

“You didn’t, though,” Wensleydale pointed out. “I saw you using them the other day when we were buying sandwiches and you didn’t have any money.”

“Yeah,” said Amber, “and I saw you make Mr. Tyler’s dog trip him with its leash after he told you off for ringing your bell on your bike.”

“That’s right!” said Zacharias. “And I saw—”

“Alright, alright,” Adam relented. “Fine. Maybe I still use them a  _ bit. _ That doesn’t mean I can use them to make a whole play. That’s too big. It’s— it’s messing with the universe, or something.”

Colin grinned wickedly, the old Greasy flaring up behind his eyes. “I bet you’re just not as magic as you used to be. I bet you’re saying no because you can’t do it.”

Adam was twelve years old, old enough to know when he was being manipulated. “I can, Colin, I’m just not _ going  _ to, because I’m a responsible person.”

“Uh-huh. Prove it.”

“I don’t have anything to prove to you,” he said haughtily.

“Yeah, right. I bet you’re just scared my Apocalypse is gonna be better than yours.”

Adam could feel anger starting to boil inside of him. “It’s not! It’s not even a real Apocalypse!”

“It’s better than the real Apocalypse. It’s  _ art _ .”

“What, because you lot have put a pier in it?”

“Yes,” said Colin hesitantly. Then he perked up. “Because it takes place by the sea.”

“But it took place in Tadfield! Tadfield’s brilliant! That’s the whole point!”

“Tadfield’s boring,” said Colin. “It’d be  _ much _ more interesting if it was at the seaside. Then you could have the Devil at a spooky old pier, for one thing.” Beside him, Zacharias beamed with pride. 

Adam gritted his teeth. “Tadfield isn’t boring,” he snapped, his voice cold. He glared across the breadth of the pit, and caught Pepper’s gaze. She raised an eyebrow at him, and he blinked, then took several deep breaths, before saying, “Fine. Fine, I’ll help you put on your stupid play.”

Colin grinned triumphantly. “Knew you’d come around. You’ll see, I’ll—”

He put up a hand. “ _ But _ ,” he added, “there’s going to be judges. To see if it holds a candle to the real thing. And, I get to pick them.”

Colin frowned. “No. No, if you got to pick them, you’d just have Brian and Pepper and Wensleydale judge it. It wouldn’t be fair.”

Darn. That  _ had  _ been his original plan, but now that he thought about it, he had to agree with Colin that it wasn’t exactly fair. 

But— they  _ did  _ still need people who’d been there, in order for it all to be judged properly. 

Adam closed his eyes. He was thinking. Well, he was doing more than thinking— he was  _ looking.  _

He looked for a good, long while, although for everyone else in the Pit, it was only a second before he opened his eyes again. An air of subtle triumph had gathered around him. 

“Alright, not Them,” he said, “we’ll get other people to judge. Some people I know, they’d be great at it. I bet I can even get a few of them to act in it for you. They’re real grownups, who can do  _ proper _ acting.” He shot glances at Pepper, Wensley, and Brian before turning back to Colin, smiling, the sunlight glinting off his hair like an angel’s halo as he moved. 

“What do you say?”

For a moment Colin’s mouth twisted with consideration, and then he smiled as well. “You’re on.”

  
  
***  
  


The cozy auditorium of Tadfield Secondary was easy enough to commandeer for a weekend, given that Colin’s father was active on the school board and ever so eager to support his son’s creative endeavors. He was mostly just relieved the kid seemed to finally be over the whole fish thing. 

Pepper and Jacob were on ticket duty, Zacharias and Wensley were responsibly leading attendees to their seats inside, and Colin was running around backstage with Brian and Amber, making sure everything was in order before the show began.

“Adam, what are you doing?” Pepper asked. “The show’s supposed to start in a bit, you should get inside, help Colin out with the props and stuff.” 

Adam was lingering near the entrance to the auditorium’s small foyer, gazing intently at the doors, through which the trickle of patrons was slowly diminishing. “Jus’ waiting for the judges,” he said. “They ought to be here any minute. I can feel ‘em coming. Oh— yeah, here they come!” 

The doors swung open to admit a pair of men, one red-headed and lanky, the other abnormally blonde and already smiling at the sight of the boy. 

“Hi Mr. Crowley,” said Adam. “Hi, Mr. Aziraphale.” 

Crowley, his hands in his pockets, nodded perfunctorily at Adam, as Aziraphale extended a hand, which Adam took and shook with a smile.

“So!” said Aziraphale, looking around the lobby. “This is your school? 

Adam was just about to answer, when the doors once more opened up to admit another pair of men. The dark-haired one was wearing a perfectly-tailored suit, while the slightly rounder one had on a knit jumper and silver-framed eyeglasses.

“Hello, Adam!” said the man in the jumper happily, and was very possibly about to say something else, but then he caught sight of the first pair, standing to Adam’s side, and his mouth snapped shut as if on a timer. 

The first pair stared down the second. After a moment, the second Crowley (for that was who it was) whistled a cheeky melody—  _ The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. [3] _

“Don’t worry about it,” said Adam. 

“Worry?!” hissed the first Crowley. “Easy for you to say! That’s— this isn’t— they’re  _ us! _ ”

“Not quite,” said the second Crowley, his hand coming up to smooth back his dark hair. “I’m not dressed like the bloody drummer for Oasis.”

“There’s no need to fight. You’re all here to see the same show,” said Adam calmly. “You read my note, yeah? About the judging?”

“Of course we did,” said the first Aziraphale, eyes nervously darting from Adam to the other pair to Crowley and back again. “Your instructions were perfectly clear, and we’re honored to be taking part in your little production. Although— you didn’t mention what the play was  _ about…  _ or, you know, what criteria we’d be judging  _ on…  _ have you got a program on hand, perhaps?”

“They’re handing them out inside,” said Adam. “I designed the cover, and all the insides. I did it on the computer, and used a bunch of fonts. It’s brilliant, you’ll love it.” 

The second Aziraphale looked very interested by the prospect of perusing a program. “Shall we take our seats, then?” he asked, glancing to the entrance to the auditorium. 

“Nah, I wouldn’t, just yet,” said Adam. “We’re still waiting on a few more…” 

“More?” said the second Aziraphale, looking with a deep and active curiosity at the door. 

“ _ More?!”  _ whispered the first Crowley in distress. 

Right on time, two more men walked in the door. This Crowley was more elegant by far than the other two, and conversely, this Aziraphale was far more disheveled and shabby. 

The third Crowley, seeming to take the situation in stride, gave a lazy salute to Adam, and a perfunctory wave to the other two pairs. 

The third Aziraphale said, “Interesting. Rather interesting. This is your doing, I assume, young man?” 

“Obviously, it was the boy,” said the first Crowley. “Could’ve used a little warning, if you asked me.” 

“I should say so,” said the second Aziraphale, looking between the first pair and settling on the first Aziraphale’s worn waistcoat. He cast a sideways glance toward his Crowley. “It might have saved you some grief trying to convince me this shirt was too dated.”

“It’s a butterfly collar and brown paisley, it  _ is _ too dated,” the second Crowley hissed.

“Alright. Now,” said Adam, darting a quick look behind him to confirm that the lobby was empty, all the other audience members having already taken their seats. The show was nearly about to begin. “We better do something about your names. Seeing as you’ve all got the same ones, and that.”

“You’re damn right,” said the third Crowley, his voice a sensuous, low rumble. He tightened his tie performatively, then lowered his sunglasses, yellow eyes casting judgemental glances at the others. “I assume I get to stay  _ Crowley. _ ” 

“Dunno about that,” said Adam lightly. “But let’s see… Hm. Can you show me your tickets?” 

All six obediently dug out the tickets that Adam had sent them, and he leaned over, inspecting them closely. 

“Alright, you two are front row, Row A,” he said, pointing to the pair that had entered second. “So you’re Crowley-A and Aziraphale-A.”

“How  _ very _ clever,” said Aziraphale-A in a saccharine tone, bending down closer to Adam’s height in the way adults did when they weren’t used to talking to children.

Crowley-A looked at Aziraphale-A, the motion of his head making it obvious that he was rolling his eyes behind his sunglasses. “Crowley-A, sounds good,” he said to Adam, staying upright and speaking to him like a person.

“Then you’re in Row C,” said Adam, to the pair who’d entered first. 

“Crowley-C, got it, got it, yeah,” said Crowley-C with a wave of his hand, before Adam could finish. Aziraphale-C nodded in agreement. “Very well,” he said. “That will do nicely, for now.”

Adam cleared his throat. “Then that leaves…” 

“Good old G,” said Crowley-G, looking down at his ticket. 

“As in, gee whiz,” said Aziraphale-G brightly. At that, Crowley-G winced, but then smiled fondly, and gently ran a hand down the curve of Aziraphale-G’s shoulder. Aziraphale-G leaned into it naturally, as though barely conscious of it at all.

Adam noticed that, and he also noticed Crowley-C noticing that, and he also noticed the nearly-invisible stiffening of Crowley-C’s entire body as the noticing occurred. He didn’t say anything about it, though. This wasn’t about  _ them.  _ This was about  _ him,  _ and Colin, and Colin’s weird play. Anything grown-up and boring these lot wanted to work through, well, they’d just have to do it on their own time. 

“Now that we’ve got that sorted,” said Adam, “let’s all sit down. The first scene is wicked, you don’t want to miss it.” 

As they crossed the lobby to the auditorium entrance, holding hands, Crowley-A leaned over to Aziraphale-A. 

“You notice something funny about those two?” he whispered.

“Other than your doppelganger’s hair?”

Crowley shook his head. “Seriously, angel. I mean, they’re meant to be us, right?”

“It would seem that way,” said Aziraphale distastefully.

They paused their conversation to find their seats and settled in, Aziraphale on the left and Crowley on the right. They shared their armrest easily, leaning comfortably on one another.

“I just mean…” Crowley paused and chanced a glance back at Crowley-C and Aziraphale-C. “I mean, look at them.”

Aziraphale went to turn his head and Crowley whacked his arm gently.

“No, no, don’t  _ look! _ ”

“You just told me to look at them!”

“I just mean they’re not, you know. They look a bit stiff, is all, and they’re not touching at all. I mean, those other two will probably have buggered off to go shag in the coatroom before the curtain’s closed on Act I, but those other ones? In row C? I don’t think they’re together.”

Aziraphale chanced a quick glance back before Crowley could protest. “Goodness,” he said. “You’re right. It’s odd, they seem to  _ want _ to be together. They keep glancing at each other when they think the other isn’t looking.”

“Woo-ee,” said Crowley, settling into his seat and lacing his fingers with Aziraphale’s on the armrest. “Glad we got all our crap sorted quicker than that.”

Behind them, Crowley-C and Aziraphale-C were settling into their seats, after Aziraphale had politely led them both past all the already-seated guests with an endless trill of “ _ sorry-excuse me-don’t mind me-coming through-excuse me!”  _

“Oh. Oh, dear,” said Aziraphale. He’d finally looked down at the program, handed to him officiously by Wensleydale upon entering the auditorium. 

“What is it?” said Crowley, who hadn’t bothered to grab one. 

In response, Aziraphale held up the program, haphazardly folded and stapled, its cover printed with words in approximately a dozen fonts. It read: 

_ GOOD OMENS:  
_ _ A STAGE PLAY _

_ BY COLIN JOHNSON  
_ _ AGE 12  _

_ PERFORMED BY THE TADFIELD SECONDARY PLAYERS _

_ FEATURING THE REAL LIFE TRUE STORY OF THE APOCALYPSE AS IT OCCURRED IN TADFIELD ENGLAND _

_ WITH MOMENTS OF GREAT DARING AND DANGER  
_ _ ANGELS AND DEMONS VS THE ANTICHRIST  
_ _ A COMING OF AGE STORY LIKE NO OTHER  
_ _ HUMANITY FACES ITS DARKEST MOMENT!   
_ _ ALSO THE DEVIL IS THERE TOO _

  
  


“Oh, you have _ got _ to be kidding me,” said Crowley with a groan, as the lights dimmed, and the show began. 

* * *

1. Mr. Johnson’s most important accomplishment of the past year was his discovery of the skincare aisle of the local pharmacy, an exploratory victory practically Magellanic in stature and impact.↩

2. “Antichrist 2,” mumbled Zacharias under his breath, still in the throes of his creative rush. “The Second... Going.” Nobody heard him. ↩

3. The first Crowley nearly swore out loud at being beaten to the punch, but managed to restrain himself.↩


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a quick dramatis personae recap: 
> 
> Crowley-A and Aziraphale-A, in the front row, are the Book Boys.  
> Crowley-C and Aziraphale-C, in the middle, are the TV Boys.  
> Crowley-G and Aziraphale-G, in the back row, are the Radio Boys. 
> 
> if you haven't listened to the excellent radio drama, aka The Horniest Adaptation, it can be found in full on dailymotion [**HERE!**](https://www.dailymotion.com/playlist/x5xauc)

The assembled angels and demons could tell that the sets and backdrops were being created through sheer force of imagination, though the other parents and children in the audience ooh-ed and aah-ed at what they assumed to be high-tech projections and holograms. 

Either way, it was impressive. The show opened with a scene in a museum, and two actors, one dressed in black, the other in white, were playing a game of checkers. 

“So… that’s supposed to be you and me, then,” Crowley-C whispered to Aziraphale-C, who shushed him gently in response. “Shh, you,” he said. “Pay attention.” 

Crowley watched with growing dismay as the demon onstage blatantly cheated at the checkers game. “Come on, at least be a little less obvious with it,” he said. “No finesse at all!” 

“I don’t believe for a second _that_ Aziraphale didn’t notice,” said Aziraphale. “You just wait.” 

Two rows ahead of them, Aziraphale-A was looking rather unimpressed. Crowley-A grinned and nudged him. “Remind me again which of us picked up sleight of hand around the time poker got popular?”

Aziraphale shot him a withering look. “How would you know, dear? You slept through the entire thing.”

Crowley-A looked forward and settled back into his seat, a smug little smile still plastered to his face. 

A bit later, the Crowley onstage started up a vehement rant, and in three separate rows, jaws dropped.

“No, it's not a very nice planet. It's a pathetic little unbelievably boring stuck in the middle of nowhere sorry excuse for a planet,” the stage-Crowley said, sounding like he very much meant it.

“ _What?!”_ hissed the Crowley in Row C. “I wouldn’t— that’s not—!

The Crowley in Row A had on a horrified expression. “Seriously?” He looked at his Aziraphale. “Loving Earth is the one thing we agree on consistently. Where is this kid getting any of this?”

Entering from stage left, a preteen girl playing some kind of assistant[1] introduced the expository fact that Aziraphale, in the play, was a curator at the British Museum.

“A good museum collection is a wonderful thing,” remarked the Aziraphale sitting in the back row, “but how does he have any time to _read,_ rushing around identifying paintings all the time?” 

“Beats me,” said the Crowley next to him. “A bit too much like real _work_ for any angel going by that name, I’d think.” 

“Oh, please! There’s no need for that,” said Aziraphale, in a tone that to any observer might have been taken for peeved, but his Crowley could hear the fondness underneath. 

The scene changed soon after from the museum to a nightclub of some kind, one that apparently was under ownership of one Anthony J. Crowley, according to the set design.

“Do you _know_ how much _paperwork_ it takes to run a nightclub?” Crowley-C whispered Aziraphale-C. “I should know, I invented liquor licensing restrictions! Eugh.” 

“When’s the last time you went to a disco?” Aziraphale-A whispered, two rows ahead. “The seventies?”

“I could go to a disco!” Crowley-A whispered back, coming off as a tad more defensive than he might have hoped. “I just wouldn’t own one, is all. I mean, I’ve got my hands full as it is keeping the trains running late. What would I want a business for? I’m not _you_.”

The appearance of a macho barman, also played by a stout 12-year-old with a comical beard painted onto his face and tattoos Sharpied onto his arms, gave the crowd a good laugh. An even bigger laugh subsequently erupted at the appearance of Satan in the mirror in front of stage-Crowley. 

“I didn’t know the Adversary took inspiration from the works of Andrew Lloyd Webber,” whispered Aziraphale-A to his Crowley. 

Crowley-A snorted. “If Satan was really that hands on, I’d lose a corporation to an aneurysm every fifty years.”

The set changed, splitting itself down center stage between a London street and the interior nightclub, and a comical sequence was acted out between the two locations, verging on slapstick. It culminated in an event that stunned all six ethereal and occult occupants of the auditorium.

“He just _left the fucking kid in the bag?!”_ hissed Crowley-C.

“A disgrace to the very name of Ernest,” Aziraphale said, wrinkling his nose. Then he looked over at Crowley. The pale light reflecting off the slightly-supernatural set was illuminating the increasingly distressed expression growing on the demon’s sharp face, as the play went on. 

“When you— delivered the baby, as it were. You were never tempted to…?” 

Crowley swallowed, not quite sure what Aziraphale was getting at. Tempted to leave the basket somewhere, to be discovered by a dotty retiree and raised neglectfully, in the interest of a tragic backstory? Tempted to dispose of the child right then and there? Tempted to take it home and, what, _bring it up on his own,_ like the Satan of the play had demanded of that wretched inversion up there, that waste of space, that disgrace of a chosen name? 

“Nah. Knew I had to do what I had to do,” Crowley answered, shaking his head. 

“You don’t any more, though,” said Aziraphale softly. 

Crowley did not have an answer for that, though if forced to come up with one he would’ve possibly made something up involving Aziraphale’s hand, laying gently on the armrest between them. As it was, he sprawled unmoving in his seat, neither hand anywhere near the angel’s.

Meanwhile, Crowley-A’s jaw was threatening to drop to downright serpentine depths. Sure, he’d _thought_ about tossing the kid, but it hadn’t exactly been his proudest moment, and he hadn’t gone through with it. And he _definitely_ wouldn’t put a baby in a strange, open bag on the streets of London and expect that to go anything other than terribly for him or the kid. 

Beside him, his Aziraphale looked as though he was biting back several comments about license plate numbers and the ability both angels and demons possessed to fly. 

Up in the auditorium’s booth, Adam was conducting the sets and lighting using his powers, which was fun enough, but he had some qualms with the way the story was going.

“I still don’t know why he can’t just lie about why he’s got a baby,” he said to Colin, who was over at the soundboard. “What’s he putting me in a bag for?”

“No, no, the Dread Demon Crowley is not someone who’d be seen with a baby,” answered Colin with a great, condescending roll of his eyes. “It’d be out of character.”

“The real Crowley didn’t stick me in a bag, though. There were nuns.”

“Well, this is _my_ Crowley, and I say he put you in a bag. It’s dramatic.”

“Sure,” said Adam, “whatever you say.” He waved a hand at the stage as the scene ended, and the setting changed.

The backdrop of the stage became, for the first time, the seaside town as dreamed up by Colin, with help from his former cabal. The kid playing Adam was the pride and joy of Tadfield’s youth theatre scene, and was giving it all he had, imbuing the troubled character of the poor orphan lad with all the pathos of a West End Gavroche. 

But still, he could only work with the material he had, and not even this tow-headed prodigy destined for RADA could redeem the cheesy, over-the-top verbal beatdown his character was receiving from his so-called “friends.” 

Colin, Adam was pretty sure, had seemingly taken dialogue straight from the opening scenes of the anti-bullying VHS tapes they showed in class whenever there was a substitute teacher.

Satan was back onstage again soon after that, prancing and preening on the lip of the stage. The kid playing him had likely spent the entire rehearsal period queueing up Bowie videos on YouTube to prepare— the Crowley in Row C reluctantly found himself admiring the commitment to character work.

“Quite possibly the most attractive child it’s ever been my honor to cast these unworthy eyes on,” groveled the Crowley on stage, lying his out-of-character arse off about his boss’s son. 

“Stop crawling, Crowley,” snapped Satan, and the Crowleys in Rows A and C let out audible groans at that. Feeling bolder than the other two, the Crowley in the back row had no compunction whatsoever against cupping his hands to his mouth and letting out a sonorous, earth-rumbling _“BOOOOO!”_

The seaside setting of the play was lovely to look at, to be sure, but Pepper, watching the show from the wings, was very concerned with some of the character decisions Colin had decided to make. The girl playing her, or at the very least playing a character with her name, was blatantly flirting with Adam’s character. 

The real Pepper’s face grew hot as she watched. She glanced nervously over at Ellen Michaelson to make sure she wasn’t paying attention. Fortunately, she was too busy fiddling with the spooky demon box on the prop table to notice either the real Pepper or, more importantly, the Pepper on stage who was fawning over a _boy._ Old Greasy—Colin— _whatever_ he was calling himself these days, he was in for a proper walloping when all this was over. 

As the first act progressed, the melodrama increased as the dialogue strained the limits of believability. But it wasn’t until the Aziraphale and Crowley onstage got into their biggest row yet that it truly broke new grounds in the field of offensiveness. 

The Crowley onstage was shouting viciously, “You are so... stupid... you don't deserve to live. I didn't tell him anything. If I had, do you think I'd be here right now?”

The Aziraphale onstage, cowering, said tremulously, “I’m sorry.” 

“You don’t have to—” 

“No, you're right. I was a fool to think we could find the boy. I was a fool to think we were friends. An angel and a demon..”

“Well, we _are_ friends, in a manner of speaking...”

It was all rather hitting a nerve for the Crowley in Row C. He kept flicking a nervous eye over to Aziraphale next to him, but the angel’s look was inscrutable. Crowley could always usually tell what Aziraphale was thinking, he kept his feelings so close to the surface of his expressive face, but right now he was impassive as Crowley’d ever seen him. He wanted to say something— but what would he say? 

“Gosh,” said the Crowley in the front row. “I’m really sorry.”

The Aziraphale sitting next to him[2] glanced over at him. “What are you apologizing for? It’s just a play, Crowley, you didn’t do anything.”

He gave a sheepish shrug of his narrow shoulders. “I don’t know, it was just nasty, wasn’t it? Someone ought to apologize for it.”

Aziraphale smiled indulgently and kissed his cheek. “You’re too sweet, my dear.”

“Sssshut up,” Crowley hissed, and he looked back up to the stage to hide his smile.

“Crowley,” said the Aziraphale sitting in the back row, “I hope young Adam won’t be offended when I tell him, but I really don’t like this play very much.” 

“It’s absolute rubbish,” drawled Crowley in agreement, his arm draped comfortably over Aziraphale’s shoulder. “I can think of about a dozen things I’d rather be doing right now.”

“Do you know,” said Aziraphale, “I’m the same way.” 

With a quick miracle, they made sure that none of their neighbors in the audience would notice anything out of the ordinary when Crowley leaned in, wrapping his arm around Aziraphale’s pale jacket, and began snogging the ever-living daylights out of him, right there in the auditorium. 

There was an extended, uncomfortable sequence of the hapless, hopeless Crowley and Aziraphale onstage trying to find a room in a B&B in seaside Tadfield. Finally, the character with Madame Tracy’s name, who bore even less of a resemblance to the real woman than the other characters to their own namesakes, was saying, “Oh. Yes of course. We've got rooms. Would that be a room each, or do you share?”

The Crowley on stage said, “A room each,” at the same time as the Aziraphale on stage said, “We’ll share.”

Crowley-C shifted uncomfortably in his seat. In the hands of the competent actor portraying him, who was all-in on the masculine bravado and overt narcissism, it was never more clear that the character called Crowley wanted absolutely nothing to do with the character called Aziraphale. Which made the pathetic, sycophantic way the stage-Aziraphale panted after stage-Crowley even more painful to watch. 

Crowley’s inner monologue was rapidly devolving: _He wants you, idiot! He’s showing it, with everything he’s got, he’s desperate for you, and you’re just kicking him harder every time. You don’t deserve him, you don’t deserve the bloody Earth, any of it! You want to fuck off so bad, just fucking do it!_

The last scene before intermission took place back on the barren beach of the fictional seaside Tadfield. The Aziraphale and Crowley on stage confirmed that they knew Adam was the Antichrist, and Aziraphale reminded Crowley of the deal they’d made eleven years previously, to let him have a chance to influence the boy. Crowley made a valiant attempt to wriggle out of it, but eventually conceded, a bit brattily. 

And then the curtain was falling, and the house lights were going up, and the first act of _Good Omens: A Stageplay_ was over. 

The chattering crowd filed out into the lobby, the angels and demons among them. Aziraphale-C made a beeline to the concession stand, naturally, but Crowley-C needed some fresh air, so he ducked outside, propping himself up against the wall of the building and starting up a good brood, staring out absently into the parking lot and trying not to capital-T Think about anything, really.

“You okay?” came a voice from beside him. Crowley-C turned and nearly jumped out of his skin[3] at the sight of Crowley-A, who was casually lighting up a cigarette with a spark of hellfire from his thumb.

Crowley-C eked out a few noncommittal noises, before finally settling on, “Oh, yeah. Fine. Love a good play. Really, uh, thought-provoking, yeah, great stuff, good kids—” 

Crowley-A let out a puff of smoke. “It’s fine, there’s no kids in earshot. You can say it. It’s rubbish.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out another cigarette, offering it silently to Crowley-C.

Crowley-C looked at the cigarette for just a moment, hesitating for just a moment before taking it and lighting it up himself. “Should I say— “ he began, but the familiar words sounded odd in his mouth, and he fell abruptly silent. He took a drag of the cigarette, and then said, thoughtfully, “Been bothering me. If you don’t mind me asking—” 

Crowley-A perked up, ready to get answers to the questions he’d had about this bizarre version of himself all night.

“—is that, you know, your Adam too? Because I met him. At the airbase. Mad day, but I couldn’t forget. If you met him too— that _same_ one, but _we’re_ different— how does that work, then?” 

Crowley-A blinked in surprise. “Oh. Er, I think he is.” He shrugged. “I dunno, he can warp reality. For all we know, all three of us could have the same Adam.”

“Right. Gotcha. Sure, makes sense.” It didn’t, not really, but Crowley-C wasn’t one to easily admit fault or lack of understanding. Especially not when in conversation with another version of himself, who seemed to have things _together_ in a way that was drawing up hints of a livid, demonic envy in Crowley-C, on top of all of the outrage and shame the theatrical production was to blame for. 

Crowley-A, meanwhile, wasn’t one to make waves or risk embarrassing himself with what, for all he knew, could be an incorrect assumption. He didn’t know this other Crowley’s life. He really ought to leave well enough alone. So what, this other Crowley wasn’t performing any acts one probably ought not to perform in a school with his other Aziraphale, the way that the other-other Crowley and other-other Aziraphale were? Neither were he and his Aziraphale, because they loved each other, but they weren’t _animals_. Still, his curiosity was killing him.

“So, er. Think the other two are going to make it back for Act II?” he asked, attempting a breezy tone. “They’ve probably got the right idea, honestly. Rude, but wiser than sitting through the whole thing, eh?”

“Um. Yeah. Definitely. Good call.” 

Crowley-C had, indeed, felt the small don’t-look miracle the pair in row G had performed earlier, but he hadn’t bothered to chance a glance back to see what exactly the purpose of it had been. But he’d seen Crowley-G’s hand on his Aziraphale’s arm before the show, he thought he could make an educated guess. 

It was like being on Torture-Testing duty back Downstairs, it really was. Crowley-C felt very much like he was strapped onto the rack, being pulled between two extremes. The back-row pair and their forthright intimacy, and the Crowley in front of him’s obvious and open affection for his own counterpart, were tugging Crowley-C one way— and on the other side, of course, was the vehement disdain, verging on legitimate _hatred,_ that the Crowley onstage was demonstrating so ostentatiously. 

Crowley-C felt his throat tighten, and it wasn’t just because of the cigarette smoke. He swiveled his head, looking behind Crowley-A through the glass doors of the auditorium, seeking out his Aziraphale, needing a glimpse of that familiar face. 

Inside, Aziraphale-C had purchased a can of soda from Brian at the concession stand, and the sugary liquid inside had obediently turned itself to something a bit more sophisticated— a Cabernet, if he wasn’t mistaken.

“Good idea,” said Aziraphale-A, who’d come up next to Aziraphale-C at the stand. He ordered a soda and did the same, and then raised his can to Aziraphale-C in a toast.

Back outside, Crowley-A followed the other Crowley’s gaze and made a decision. “Look,” he sighed. “Maybe it’s not my place, I dunno, but I’m sort of you and— You and your Aziraphale, are you two… _good_? I mean, is there something the matter? Have you had a row or something?”

“What? No!” said Crowley-C, perhaps a bit too quickly. He shook his head, tried again. “We’re fine. We’re actually— better than we’ve ever been, ever since. You know. All of that.” He then had a slight internal panic, wondering if it counted as oversharing if you were telling pertinent personal details to another version of _yourself,_ but then figured this might be the only chance he’d ever get to receive advice from someone who really could _understand_ , and plowed ahead. 

“We’re together all the time. It’s nice— it’s more than nice, it’s brilliant. I just want— I just _don’t_ want,” he said, “to, you know. Go too fast.” He took a long drag on his cigarette.

“Um. No, I don’t know, I’m afraid. ‘Go too fast’ with what? Your relationship?” Crowley-A paused. “You do mean you don’t want to go too fast _emotionally_ , right?” he asked in a cautious tone.

Crowley-C blinked rapidly, coming to terms with the idea that those _three little words_ had zero emotional resonance for this other Crowley. Had he just spent the last third of the sixties getting happily stoned, instead of wallowing in thermos-related misery? 

“I. Well. That, and… the other… stuff…” Crowley-C trailed off, frustrated. “Oh, bugger this,” he said, flicking his cigarette to the ground and grinding it out with his heel, before making to walk back inside. 

Surprising himself, Crowley-A reached out a hand and gripped his shoulder. “Hang on, hang on, hang on.” He looked down at the ground and vanished the discarded cigarette. “Geez. It’s Aziraphale, it can’t be _that_ bad. I mean, what is it? He’s afraid of Heaven, you’re afraid you’re going to be his downfall, what?”

Clever quips were distinctly but not unsurprisingly unforthcoming, so Crowley-C made do with lifting his sunglasses so he could rub a bit desperately at his eyes, and then taking a deep breath in. “Fuck,” he hissed, casting an unshaded, unguarded look at the other Crowley. “Should’ve known you of all people could cut to the quick.” 

Crowley-A took off his sunglasses as well, tucking them into the front pocket of his jacket. He looked the other Crowley calmly in the eye. “Seems like you need it. Now, come on, what’s holding you back?”

“Honestly?” said Crowley-C. Now that he was looking into Crowley-A’s eyes, crisp yellow-gold, black-slitted and familiar, it was more like looking into a mirror than anything. And Crowley-C had plenty of practice talking to himself— it was easy, it was free, it was one of his favorite hobbies. So it came out easier, now. “All the things I don’t know. I can— I _do_ imagine a million different ways it might go— and I can’t ever figure out which one’s more real. The curse of creativity, I guess,” he finished, bitterly. 

“Hm,” Crowley-A hummed, taking a drag of his cigarette and taking a moment to think. “I mean, the thing is, it’s not up to chance. This isn’t a roll of the dice you’re taking. It _definitely_ isn’t part of anyone’s Great, Ineffable Plan. It’s a choice you make together. You’ve been on Earth together the whole time, right?”

“Well, yeah.” 

“So you’ve done the same thing as us. Built a life, grown up around each other. He didn’t have to do that with you anymore than you had to do it with him. If there’s something more that you want, you’ve got to tell him that.” He smiled. “Especially if your angel isn’t as demanding as mine. Mine at least got a bit out of me on the airfield and it all—” he made a vague gesture— “flowed from there. Whatever you two are like, you’ve just got to put in a little more work, is all.”

 _Well. That’s a thing._ Crowley-C instinctively snapped his sunglasses back securely to his face, and nodded wordlessly. He wished he hadn’t stubbed out his cigarette, but he wasn’t about to ask for _another,_ was he? 

Meanwhile, a similar conversation was unfolding inside the lobby near the concession stand. Aziraphale-A lacked much of his companion’s compunction over prying into other people’s business, so after they’d each had a sip of soda, he hopped right to it.

“By the way, my dear fellow, something’s been bothering me all night. I notice you and your Crowley seem rather… _distant_.”

“What do you mean?” said Aziraphale-C, the picture of innocence. “We’re on quite good terms. We did save the world together, after all. We escaped the trials of Heaven and Hell—”

Aziraphale-A frowned. “Trials? I don’t remember any trials.”

“Really?” gasped Aziraphale-C. “They didn’t— sentence you to death?” He was speaking in an overly dramatic stage-whisper. “For treason, for stopping Armageddon?” 

Aziraphale-A clasped a hand to his chest. “Goodness, no! Adam said he’d take care of everything, and he did.”

“Oh…” said Aziraphale-C, blinking as this sank in. “That’s… kind of him.” 

“Yes. Crowley and I drove home, spent the night at his flat…” He looked at Aziraphale-C pointedly. “And that was that. We’ve been quite contented together ever since. We’re actually looking at a home by the seaside together.” Seeing that Aziraphale-C hadn’t quite gotten there, he added, “What about you two?”

“I’m sure my— er, the Crowley I arrived with wouldn’t go in for that sort of thing,” Aziraphale said, laughing uncomfortably, “he’s rather the city slicker.”

“Well, have you asked him?”

Aziraphale-C’s eyes darted to the side, and then back to Aziraphale-A’s attentive gaze, and he seemed just about answer, but then was interrupted by the ringing of a bell from somewhere nearby, alerting all the theater patrons that the rest of the show was about to commence. 

From outside, two Crowleys re-entered. The one with the red hair was a bit red-faced as he went up to his Aziraphale, but Aziraphale’s smile at his reappearance was answered, naturally, with a matching one.

“Gosh,” said Aziraphale-A, tipping his head to the sound of the bell. “There’s still a whole second act to go."

“Don’t remind me,” grumbled Crowley-A, coming to his side. “We could always leave, you know,” he added, looking at him pointedly, waiting for permission to do something they both knew was wrong. 

“Best not,” said Aziraphale-A. “Adam invited us all the way out here to _help_ him. We can’t just give up halfway through.” 

The third pair, formerly of Row G, did not hold to the same standards of responsibility. There was a coat closet off to the side of the concession stand, unoccupied due to the warm fall weather, and before intermission ended they’d stepped inside. Crowley-G swiftly pulled the door closed, and after that there were some muffled noises, but by then the lobby had emptied as the intermission came to an end, and nobody was around to hear.

Inside the auditorium, Crowley-A and Aziraphale-A made their way to their seats.

“Get anything out of yours?” asked Aziraphale.

Crowley sucked in a breath. “It was like letting the air out of a balloon. Poor bastard needs a holiday and a bloody therapist.”

“Yes, well, it sounds as though they’ve been through a lot. I did my best advising mine.”

“Same.” He put a hand over Aziraphale’s and sighed. “I think I hate giving advice.”

“I’d imagine so, dear,” said Aziraphale, looking toward the stage. “You’re usually the one who needs it.”

The lights lowered, and Crowley-C and Aziraphale-C sat down next to each other in their row. Crowley spared a glance, once more, to Aziraphale’s hand as it settled happily between them on their shared armrest. As the lights dimmed, he eyed it up like something to be won, the golden ring on the angel’s finger like a carnival prize. 

Above their heads, Adam and Colin were taking their seats in the booth again.

Adam looked down at the auditorium. “Colin? We’re missing a pair of judges.”

“What?” Colin stood and put his face to the window of the booth, his nose nearly touching the glass. For a moment it looked as though he was going to panic, but then he turned to Adam with a haughty expression. “Then they’re disqualified. And this next act’s the best one. It’s got the pier and the Devil and all the good bits of _my_ Apocalypse. When they see it, the other two pairs will think it’s brilliant, and then I’ll win.”

“Whatever you say, Colin,” said Adam, settling easily into his chair, and preparing for disaster to tip the night definitively in his favor.

* * *

1. The artistic choice to have all the characters except for Aziraphale and Crowley played by 12-year-olds, surprisingly, was one of the better things about the play so far. At the very least, it took some of the edge off of the stilted dialogue, and traded it in for pure physical comedy.↩

2. Practically beneath him, in fact. All that was keeping the Crowley in the front row from sliding into Aziraphale’s lap was the armrest between them.↩

3. More physically plausible an outcome than you might think. See: Eden, Serpent of.↩


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have been BLESSED with some INCREDIBLE fanart for this story by thegoodomensdumpster on Tumblr! [LOOK AT THESE BOYS!!!!!!](https://thegoodomensdumpster.tumblr.com/post/190332877237/so-crowleyraejepsen-and-areyougonnabe-are)

The play started up again with a trill of thematic fanfare, and soon began moving through a thoroughly stultifying sequence of stage-Aziraphale and stage-Crowley taking the young Antichrist on a tour of London’s finest cultural establishments, exerting their influence as they went. 

The topic of the checkers game came up again, and Adam learned that Aziraphale was, in fact, aware of Crowley’s cheating ways. 

“See? I told you he knew,” Aziraphale-C said, seeming a bit too smug for Crowley-C’s comfort. 

Crowley hissed through his teeth. “But still, come on, angel! It’s making you seem like an utter _dunce_. Don’t you feel— disrespected?” He was trying to draw something out of the angel, though he wasn’t quite sure what. Some kind of acknowledgement, some kind of indication that none of it at all was ringing true for him.

But Aziraphale’s attention had been drawn fully back to the stage, as the sequence continued, lazily compressing eleven years of effortful collaborative work the real angels and demons had put into raising young Warlock into a single competitive outing. 

At the back of the auditorium, two figures had slipped silently through the door. Leaning against the wall, the out-of-sorts nature of their clothes and hair failed to draw notice from the enraptured audience. 

“Couldn’t even be bothered to put on a dress,” groused Crowley-G, regarding the antics on stage. “No style at all. No flair.” 

“I very much doubt _he_ could pull it off like _you_ could, dear,” said Aziraphale with a smirk.

Crowley-A looked askance at the stage’s realistic depiction of the grotty London red-light district, replete with heaps of trash and sex workers, that stage-Crowley was currently guiding stage-Adam through. “I don’t know who’s letting these kids make sets this raunchy,” he said, leaning over to Aziraphale, “but if they’re old enough to recreate Brewer Street circa ‘92, they’re old enough for _me_ to sue _them_ for character defamation. Why the hell would I take a kid _there?”_

The Crowley on stage, single-mindedly pursuing his goal of drawing the son of Satan over to his side, was ranting with increasing pessimistic passion. “I've seen people. And they're all rotten down to their cores. If you rely on that, then you're fine. You can't care about anyone else. Just look out for number one. That's all.” 

“What nonsense,” said Aziraphale-C, frowning, a hint of offense creeping into his formerly tolerant tone. “ _Really,_ such utter tripe.” 

Crowley-C just groaned, and sank further into his seat. 

The whole audience let out a collective gasp a few minutes later when the sunglasses of the Crowley on stage melted into his face, revealing yellow-slitted eyes. 

“Ew,” said Crowley-A. “That was a little Cronenberg, wasn’t it?”

“What on Earth is a Cronenberg?” asked Aziraphale-A.

Meanwhile, Aziraphale-G turned to Crowley-G and asked, “Can you actually _do_ that?”

“I suppose I _could,_ ” said Crowley-G with a grimace, “but please, don’t make me. There’s no aesthetic appeal whatsoever.” 

Giving Adam a thumbs up from across the booth, Colin said, “Good one, mate.” 

Adam grinned back happily. The play may have been, to quote one Arthur Young’s favorite insult, “a bunch of bin baloney,” but at least Adam could be proud of his visuals. He’d had so much fun coming up with ideas for all the special effects that he’d found himself wondering how, after he’d renewed his promise to (mostly) not use his powers again,when the play was over, he could go on doing something like this. There had to be grown-ups whose real jobs it was to make things look gross and cool on TV and films, right? He made a mental note to look it up later. 

One of Colin’s favorite scenes was up next. Anathema, played by his long-time crush Delia Kettering-Jones, threatened Adam with a glinting silver knife. Colin, despite having written the show and knowing exactly how it went, was whispering “ _Get him, Delia!”_ under his breath, and even sighed in disappointment when Adam managed to stop her. 

The next bit that caused a stir amongst the assembled angels and demons, of course, involved the controversial character of stage-Crowley. 

He seemed to be having a delightful, breezy time packing up and preparing to run away— just adding insult to injury for the Crowley in Row C. He couldn’t stop himself from squirming uncomfortably in his seat, as though trying to run away _now_ from what was happening _up there_ on stage _._

But then he felt a light touch on his shoulder. “I know you wouldn’t have actually gone, my dear,” said Aziraphale, “even if I hadn’t been discorporated.” 

“Course not,” muttered Crowley, in what he hoped was a casual tone, but suddenly he felt much better. Something lifted inside of him, some pressure released, which made the truly absurd moment that came next in the play not quite as bad as it could’ve been. 

“Why, good looking, what brings you to Alpha Centauri?” breathed the Crowley on stage, in a simpering, feminine voice. He answered himself in a terrible Sean Connery imitation: “I'm a stranger in town, Miss. Maybe you could show me the sights?” And again, in the alien-girl whisper: “I'd like that, stranger.”

In the front row, Aziraphale-A couldn’t resist a giggle. His Crowley glowered at him. “Come on, that’s not funny. I don’t do that.”

“Perhaps not with the, er, _fetching_ women of Alpha Centauri, but I’ve seen you posing with pretend guns in the mirror.”

“I don’t know why they keep bringing Alpha Centauri _up,_ anyway,” Crowley mumbled. [1]

As chaos descended on the seaside town, the plot got muddier and muddier. Satan was back, clearly, and Adam’s powers were in full force, having turned Tadfield into his personal funfair. Anathema and Madame Tracy were under the spell, though Anathema was resisting valiantly. Miss Kettering-Jones was giving the struggle to resist Adam’s mind control a powerfully kinetic depiction, staggering about the stage and contorting her expression dramatically. 

The audience seemed to be eating up the melodrama like hungover gamblers at a Vegas buffet. They were booing and gasping and laughing at each dramatic declamation, clapping at the snappy one-liners and cheering at the insults. Colin was drinking it all in, giving Adam pointed looks at every uproarious reaction. 

Adam wasn’t giving him an inch, though. He merely shrugged and smiled, knowing very well that he had the judges in his pocket, and there was absolutely nothing Colin could do about it. 

“I’m not helping you. This is my only chance to get out,” stage-Crowley was saying with a cruel glare. 

“We’re friends,” moaned stage-Aziraphale helplessly. 

“ _Were,”_ barked stage-Crowley, pushing his way past the angel with a careless shove. 

Barely keeping his voice to a whisper, Crowley-A hissed, “Why am I so mean?!”

“You’re taking this awfully personally,” said Aziraphale-A. “It’s pure fiction. _I’d_ certainly never let you talk to me like that.”

“Then why don’t you go up there and defend your fictional honor? This is killing me.”

Aziraphale patted his hand gently. “It’s nearly over, dear.”

“Listen,” Crowley-C was saying at that very moment through gritted teeth, his left hand gripping his armrest and his right curled up in a fist in his lap, “you know that I don’t— I would _never—_ he’s treating him so _awfully,_ Aziraphale, I can’t fucking stand it—” 

He was getting worked up, he _knew_ he was getting worked up, and he didn’t like to get worked up in front of Aziraphale, he much preferred to bottle it up and save it for later so the angel wouldn’t have to see. But just like during those manic hours before Armageddon, which had found him pulling all sorts of stunts and maneuvers, the sheer distress brought on by the play was actively diminishing his self-control. 

“Oh, Crowley,” said Aziraphale, his eyes widening in shock, “you can’t possibly— think I believe you’re _anything_ like that horrid character with your name!” 

“Nnh,” Crowley choked out in response, his nails digging into his palm. 

Apparently this was too noncommittal a confirmation for Aziraphale, but it wasn’t as if what he did next delivered Crowley the ability for any additional eloquence. 

In fact, quite the opposite— Aziraphale’s hand found its way to Crowley’s tight fist, and spread out atop it, pressing with a gentle touch until Crowley’s fingers loosened beneath his, and they interlocked together, in a warm grasp. 

Crowley didn’t say anything, then. Neither of them said anything. They sat there, holding hands, and watched the play move towards its inevitable climax. 

This, now, was the stretch of the show where Colin had really stretched his creative muscles, and given the actors miles and miles of scenery to chew on. Lots of impassioned confrontations, as emotions ran high and loyalties were tested. 

“Are you enjoying this, Adam? Being their lord and master? Do you think that makes them like you?” Aziraphale on stage asked Adam. 

“I'm their king,” Adam replied insolently.

“Wouldn't you rather be their friend?”

“Why does everything you say sound like Rose from the _Golden Girls_?” whispered the Crowley in the front row, in his Aziraphale’s ear.

Aziraphale had no idea at all what that meant, so he turned up his nose and replied, “This Aziraphale is no more _me_ than a Crowley who says that anybody is ‘so stupid they don’t deserve to live’ is _you._ ”

Crowley-G, in the interests of self-image, had been idly hoping that the character with his name would attain something resembling redemption over the course of the show, but when it eventually came, he found himself roundly disappointed.

“He played checkers and just… changed his mind?” he murmured in that low rumble to his Aziraphale, when the Crowley onstage turned down the promotion to Alpha Centauri and tried to tell his boss he was quitting.

“Don’t look at _me,_ ” said Aziraphale. “None of this has made _any_ sense at all since we walked in and saw a version of you with bright red hair.” 

Crowley chuckled. “Looks like he got dipped in sriracha, doesn’t it? Mm, _spicy._ ” 

It was indeed true that the real-life “defeat” of Satan, if it could be called that, had an element of subversion in each universe where it occurred. But in the play, instead of Adam’s compassion and self-determination being what doused the devil’s rage, it was a single throwaway line from Crowley that caused Satan to just… change his mind?

“It's been interesting meeting you. I fear I am not cut out to be a father…” Satan laughed, before disappearing, in a burst of expertly-rendered flame, back to Hell.

Aziraphale-A sputtered quietly in his seat. “That’s _it?_ Just like that? He just points out to Satan that his son is rebelling, and Satan just… _relents_? What about—”

“Angel, honestly, I don’t know why you’re expecting thematic cohesion this late in the game,” said Crowley-A, patting Aziraphale soothingly on the arm.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise that the denouement found ways to be even more upsetting than the anticlimax. Stage-Aziraphale offered stage-Anathema a job as his assistant, and in response, Anathema flirtatiously kissed him on the cheek.

“Do you know, in six thousand years, no one's ever done that before,” said stage-Aziraphale, stunned. 

Aziraphale-A balked, nearly jumping out of his seat. “Is that—? Am I meant to be—? Is someone going to explain to this child that I’m—?”

Crowley-A raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, no, you’ve definitely gotten plenty of that from your poets over the millennia. Ow!” he added, rubbing the place where Aziraphale had just elbowed him and glaring at him.

A similar back-and-forth occurred next between Madame Tracy and Crowley. 

“I’ll throw you a birthday party you’ll never forget,” stage-Crowley leered. 

“I’m much too old for that,” Madame Tracy fluttered. 

“You’re kidding me. You’re what? Twenty-seven? Twenty-nine? Thirty?” 

“Mister Crowley, you’re a devil!”

In three separate locations in the auditorium, three separate Crowleys let out a tortured “Absolutely _not.”_

There was one final blow in the lineup of this play’s unfortunate pair-offs.

“I’ve got something better,” the Adam onstage said earnestly, turning to stage-Pepper. “You want to see a movie?”

“ _Do_ I?” she squealed in response, and they ran off stage left together, holding hands. 

This time, Ellen Michaelson _was_ looking, and her face was unreadable. If the play hadn’t been nearly over, Pepper would be on her way back through the green room, down the hall, and up into the sound booth to give Greasy a piece of her mind. But it was almost over, and she could be patient. Decking her former enemy with an audience would be _much_ more satisfying.

The final exchange of the wretched production brought little relief, thematically. There was one line, that after two hours of uncanny-valley strangeness, finally managed to strike a chord of familiarity with the judges, but the level of familiarity differed just slightly between the pairs.

Crowley-A squinted. “I said ‘liking,’ didn’t I? ‘Just enough of a bastard to be worth _liking_ ,’ not _‘knowing_ .’ I was proud of that one. It was _very_ romantic, I thought.” He glanced at Aziraphale-A. “Right?

“It could be a play on ‘knowing’ in the biblical sense,” the angel next to him replied, leaving Crowley’s spiral of insecurity to wind down on its own.

“Come off it, this is clearly meant to be pathos. Why would he say, _Hey, you stupid idiot, I’m glad you were edgy enough for me to shtup?_ That doesn’t make any sense.” He crossed his arms. “Besides, I don’t think this play would ever _dare_ imply that we were anything other than strict heterosexuals.”

“Well,” said Aziraphale-A in one last attempt at magnanimity, “it works better for _this_ Crowley.”

“Yeah, well, I actually _like_ you,” he grumbled, “so there.”

For the first time since slipping his hand into Crowley-C’s, Aziraphale-C spoke. “Did you notice,” he said quietly, “that the character with _my_ name had no kind words whatsoever to say about his _associate.”_

“Noticed that, yeah,” Crowley mumbled. 

“I feel _very_ sorry for him,” said Aziraphale, and gave Crowley’s hand a squeeze that traveled up Crowley’s arm and straight into his chest, where it bloomed into something warm and alive.

Onstage, Crowley and Aziraphale got into the prop Bentley, and drove away off stage right, stage-Crowley getting in one last dig at how much he hated the Earth, and neither of them managing to convey any emotion resembling friendship or affection whatsoever. 

And then the show was over, and the cast was striding on stage for their curtain call, and all around Crowley and Aziraphale in Row C the audience was rising to their feet to give the cast a standing ovation. Crowley was reluctant to stand for a number of reasons: first of all, the play had been excruciatingly bad, and second of all, he worried that if he moved at all, Aziraphale might let go of his hand, and he didn’t know if he’d ever get it back again. 

Over their heads, something round and scarlet and soggy came flying towards the stage, heading right for the shining face of the talented young man who’d played the Antichrist. 

Reality rippled as the tomato flew over the first row, and a single thornless red rose smacked the boy in the face instead. Crowley-A set his hand down, and he withered with embarrassment under Aziraphale-A’s approving gaze.

“That _bastard_ ,” Crowley-G hissed in the back of the theater, as Aziraphale-G let out a breathless wheeze of laughter. [2] “That would’ve been _so_ good! Come on!” 

“They loved it!” breathed Colin, his face shining with excitement as he looked down on the cheering crowd below from behind the glass of the booth. Then he spun around to face Adam, a bit of that old Greasiness showing in his eyes. “I _definitely_ won, Young, so you and your gang are just going to have to take _that_ and shove it up your—”

“We’re not a gang anymore,” interrupted Adam, “we’re _friends._ And just because the audience loved it, doesn’t mean it was better, or the best. That’s why we’ve got the judges, remember?” 

Colin frowned, but didn’t argue, and followed Adam down the stairs out of the booth.

The auditorium emptied out, the majority of parents and siblings headed right out to the lobby to greet the cast members with congratulations and bouquets. The angels and demons, having fulfilled their obligations to the reality Adam had created so that they would attend a human child’s depiction of their failed Armageddon in the first place, immediately began to wonder why on Earth they were still there, and made moves to leave as well. 

But they weren’t fast enough. From down the aisle, Adam came sprinting towards the stage, with Colin following close behind. 

“C’mon, guys!” he yelled, his voice echoing around the theater. “Time for the Final Judgement!” 

“I really don’t like hearing him say those words,” Aziraphale-G muttered to Crowley-G as they made their way over. “Too soon.” 

As the pair in Row C rose from their seats, Aziraphale-C’s hand finally did slip from Crowleys, and Crowley valiantly resisted the urge to bring his hand to his face and smell whatever was left of Aziraphale’s touch. He shuffled out of the row behind Aziraphale and followed the angel up the steps to the stage, where Adam and Colin were gathering everyone. 

From the wings of the stage, the rest of the Them and the Johnsonites filtered in as well, eager to learn the outcome of this very important competition.

“They made it back,” said Colin, noting the appearance on the stage of the back-row pair. 

Adam shrugged. “They were probably using the toilet, or something. Couldn’t have missed that much, I don’t think.” 

Colin nodded, then spread his arms out like a ringleader, and proclaimed theatrically, “Judges, you have traveled far to be here today, to witness this performance of Apocalyptic proportions!”

“I sent the judging instructions with your invitations,” Adam said, businesslike, “but just in case you forgot, it’s like this. I’ll ask you what you thought of the play, and you’ll tell us. Then, if you thought it was worse than the _real_ Armageddon, you give a thumbs down.”

“And if you thought it was _better,_ ” said Colin, with a confident smile. “You give a thumbs up. That’s all.”

“Okay, you two first,” said Adam, pointing at the pair closest to the edge of the stage, who’d been watching from the back. 

Crowley-G cleared his throat, but before he could speak, Aziraphale-G pressed a hand to his arm and said, “Well, Mr. Johnson, you have _much_ to be proud of, it has to be said...” 

Crowley-G gave a relaxed smirk at his Aziraphale, looking like he knew very well the turn this was about to take. 

“...But, having been present for the very events your work purports to depict, I must be honest in my appraisal. It simply wasn’t very good at all.” He held out an elegant hand, and offered a definitive thumbs-down. 

Colin crossed his arms, waiting for Crowley-G to have his turn. 

“What my angel said,” Crowley-G purred laconically, and gave his own louche thumbs down. 

Colin’s eye twitched, and he tapped his foot on the pocked, cratered black surface of the stage, but did not offer a single degree of concession. “Best of six,” he said. “Doesn’t mean anything, those two. They didn’t even see the whole thing, so what do they know!” 

Adam looked to the side, and caught Pepper’s glance as she rolled her eyes. _Yeah, yeah, I know,_ Adam thought at her [3], _but we’ve just got to let it play out._

“Alright,” Adam said, “thank you so much, Mr. Crowley, Mr. Aziraphale. Now, you two, Mr. Crowley, Mr. Aziraphale.” He pointed at the pair standing in the middle, the ones who’d been sitting up in the front row. 

Crowley-A and Aziraphale-A stared at each other, silently begging the other to go first. Aziraphale gave Crowley a desperate frown that said, _Please, I don’t know how to talk to children_ , and Crowley lifted his eyes above his eyebrows in a way Aziraphale knew meant, _Yes, but I have nothing positive to say to his child, and I really don’t want to make a twelve-year-old cry in front of his friends_. Several more brow furrows and lip twitches were exchanged, and at last Crowley won the day.

Aziraphale turned to the boy with a wide smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes and said, “Well, my boy, it certainly was… _something_.” He took a breath. “Well, it was…” He stalled and looked to Crowley again, his eyes practically screaming for help.

“Alright, alright,” said Crowley. He looked at Colin and sighed. “Listen, kid, you wrote a play. That in itself is an accomplishment, alright? Most kids your age don’t have that sort of followthrough—hell, most _adults_ don’t. I’ve certainly never done it, and I’ve been around since adults were invented. But, the thing is, what you were writing about is something that happened to all of us.” He gestured to his Aziraphale and the other two pairs gathered on the stage. “And, I mean, you know. It’s a weird experience, seeing how much you changed about it. I mean.” He looked desperately at the boy. “You know what I mean, right?”

“I think what he’s trying to say,” said Aziraphale, “is that this is a story that means a lot to all of us. We all have our different versions of it, but it’s ultimately the same story about two enemies who come to care for each other and decide that the Earth is worth saving. Making changes to the details is alright, but your play was missing that essential core, and that’s something that’s very important to us. So, with all due respect,” here, he threw Crowley a look— “unless you have any objections, my dear—”

“Let’s add that this is _because_ we’re taking you seriously,” Crowley cut in, a false smile pasted to his face, “and you’re a real enough artist that you need criticism to grow, so in a way this is sort of a compliment?”

“Yes, yes, well put,” said Aziraphale, sounding relieved. “So—and we _do_ mean this constructively—it’s going to have to be two thumbs down from us.”

Colin’s shoulders sagged, and his lower lip started to wobble. It was clear that he’d lost, just on hard numbers alone, and part of Adam was tempting him to call off the rest of the judging ceremony to give his friend a chance to lick his wounds in private.

But then, looking at the last remaining angel-demon pair, standing nearly shoulder-to-shoulder on stage, Adam felt something in the air, some slow and vital unfurling that needed just one more little push to finally bring itself up towards the light. He knew what had to be done. 

“Alright, Colin,” he said, putting a steadying hand on his friend’s back. “Mr. Aziraphale and Mr. Crowley came all this way to be judges just like everyone else. They ought to have a chance to do their job.”

Silent and tight-lipped, as if he knew if he opened his mouth he’d start to sob, Colin nodded, and Adam gestured at the last pair to go on ahead. 

“It was _very_ exciting,” said Aziraphale-C slowly, twisting compulsively at his ring. “I loved all of the…. _things_ happening. Rather _thrilling,_ one might say. A real crowd-pleaser.”

Crowley-C tensed invisibly, wondering if he could have possibly misjudged it all, if Aziraphale really was about to give a damned thumbs up to the steaming crock of shit they’d all just had to endure.

“ _But,_ ” said Aziraphale-C, and Crowley-C could hear quite clearly the subtle shift in tone in his voice, from complimentary to disapproving, “I must take a great deal of umbrage at your depiction of the central relationship, as it were. Crowley and I have our differences, our troubles, but in every iteration, every _real_ version—” he gave meaningful glances to the other two pairs on stage— “our relationship is far more respectful, far more caring, far more … _kind_ , than the one you portrayed. Far be it from me to pass judgement on the types of role models you have in your life, my dear boy, but I do feel you may be in need of some new ones.” 

He thought for a moment, and then exclaimed, “Oh! I nearly forgot— the omission of my bookshop in favor of some absurd museum occupation is, quite honestly, unforgivable.” 

Mission accomplished, he offered his out his hand in a confident thumbs-down. Slowly lowering it, he looked expectantly to the Crowley next to him, and cleared his throat.

“Well. Um. Ah — last, I guess,” said Crowley-C. “Everyone said what I was going to say, really. Dunno what else there is...” He trailed off, and then Aziraphale nudged him, and it was as if he’d just remembered the angel was there. 

He took a deep breath, and as he spoke, he wasn’t looking at Colin, or Adam, but right at Aziraphale. 

“It’s funny. You had all the pieces right there. Well, most of them. _Well,_ the important ones. Angel, demon, Antichrist. Psychic girl, weird old lady. London, Bentley, town called Tadfield. But the way you put them together, it was like… it was like Hell, really. Everything upside-down, torture and terror all tied up together. Yeah, it was awful. Sorry, kid, thumbs down, all the way. But… you know what? I’m really glad I came. I’m glad I saw it.”

Aziraphale furrowed his brow, confused, but waited patiently for Crowley to go on. 

“Because sometimes you need to hear all the things you’d _never_ say,” Crowley said slowly, “out loud, clear as day, to finally realize all the things that you _do_ want to say. The things you want to say more than anything.” 

Aziraphale turned his gaze on Crowley now, and it was unwavering, blue and beatific. Crowley’s hands came out to press Aziraphale’s between them. “I need you to know, Aziraphale,” Crowley said, “that I’m not like that wanker in the play, that this kid gave _my_ name. He didn’t love his Aziraphale, not one bit, and it nearly killed me to sit there watching it.”

A breath held, then released—

“But _I—_ I do love you. I do, angel.” 

“ _Crowley,_ ” said Aziraphale, “oh—”

And he might have said something else then, but whatever it could’ve been was muffled as his mouth was buried in Crowley’s shoulder as they embraced, right there on the stage— a deep, clutching hold around each other, arms and hands pressed tight, shuddering breaths of relief and affection into necks and skin, rocking gently back and forth, close and then even closer. 

“Thank Go— Sa— _Somebody_ ,” said Crowley-A, throwing his head back with relief. “If the tension hadn’t broken soon I was either going to punch a wall or kiss you.”

“That somebody is at least partly you, my dear,” Aziraphale-A muttered just quietly enough that the C-pair wouldn’t hear, smiling. “It seems you have no reason to hate giving advice after all.”

They smiled at each other, Aziraphale-A slipping a subtle arm around his Crowley, and they looked on together at the tender scene as it wiped away the ugly patina the play had left on the evening.

After what seemed like a reasonable amount of time for this kind of meaningful moment, Crowley-G wolf-whistled loudly, and the C-pair sprang apart, shocked back into reality. They stared at each other for just a moment before looking down at their feet. Crowley-C held out his hand and Aziraphale-C took it, and then both of them looked back up at Colin and Adam, sheepish but unashamed. 

“Thank you all for your judging,” said Adam, unable to hold back his satisfied expression at the outcome of the evening. “And thank you for your votes. You’ve done a great job, and done us a great honor by being here.”

“We’re free to go?” said Aziraphale-G politely. 

“Yeah, sure,” said Adam, and the G-pair were immediately the first down the steps off the stage, Crowley-G calling out a casual “Bye, guys,” over his shoulder.

Aziraphale-A smiled at Adam. “I’m glad to see how well you’re doing, my dear boy,” he said. “Thank you for bringing all of us together.”

“No problem,” said Adam, beaming. He turned to Crowley-A, who froze like a hognose snake about to play dead, and gave him a little wave. “Good to see you, Mr. Crowley.”

“Ngk,” said Crowley-A, who really did like Adam in theory but who’d never quite come around to the reality of this all-powerful being who’d taken a shine to him. “Yeah. Ditto. Ciao, then.”

Aziraphale-A put an arm around his Crowley’s shoulders, steering him out of the room and casting an apologetic glance back at Adam as they disappeared out of the auditorium.

“Now, you all have a lovely rest of your evening,” said Aziraphale-C to the assembled kids, as Crowley-C tugged shamelessly at the back of the angel’s coat, justifiably eager to be out of that accursed theater.

“See ya,” said Crowley-C, and Aziraphale-C had to make do with a final gracious wave before being hauled off. 

Adam watched them go, Crowley-C’s arm winding around Aziraphale-C’s side as they headed up the aisle towards the auditorium exit. 

The second they’d all finally gone, Colin rounded on Adam.

“You’re a dirty cheater, Adam Young!” he shouted. “You paid ‘em off! You used your tricks on them!”

“I didn’t!” said Adam, outraged at the suggestion. 

“You did, and I know it!” Colin raged. “I mean, why wouldn’t they like it?! Why would they _all_ give a thumbs down? It was brilliant, it had everything!” 

Adam, inspired by the bit of hugging that had just gone on before his very eyes to positive effect, delivered his own version to Colin then, giving him a quick brotherly squeeze before standing back, his hands solid on Colin’s shoulders, looking him dead in the eye. 

“Listen, Colin. Art is— a funny thing. You ever go to a museum, and you see somethin’ really wonderful, but your mum or whoever drags you away to the next one before you’re done looking, because she doesn’t think it’s that wonderful at all?”

Colin shook his head. “I don’t go to a lot of museums with my mum. Mostly just to the cinema.”

Adam sighed. “Well, I’m sure there are… films you _loved_ that your mum couldn’t stand.”

“Yeah. Guess so. Don’t see what that has to do with me _losing_ when I _shouldn’t_ have, though,” Colin sniffled. 

“Just because you lost doesn’t mean you failed,” said Adam. “We’re only twelve, Colin. We can try again next year. Do a different play, a different story. You know,” he said, and his beaming boyish smile was now so sparkling now that Colin couldn’t help it spreading, just a bit, to his own face, “I had a _ton_ of fun doing it all with you. And we learned that we worked really good together, didn’t we? You on all the words, me on all the pictures. We could make our _own_ films together one day. Fill ‘em with monsters, guns, adventures— what d’you think?” 

“Yeah,” said Colin, the tears rapidly drying in his eyes as he considered the possibilities, unfolding before him through the power of Adam’s multiform imagination. “Yeah, that sounds _wicked._ ” 

Adam stepped back, letting go of Colin’s shoulders, but before he could continue his encouraging speech, there was a howl from beside him. 

“Move aside,” screeched a high voice full of pent-up rage, and a blurry streak of girl pushed Adam out of its path. Pepper reared her fist back and jabbed it hard and quick into Colin’s upper arm. 

Colin groaned and clutched his smarting bicep. “Oi! Pepper, What was that for?”

“Me and Adam?! _Me?!_ And _Adam?!_ You’ve got a lot of nerve, Greasy Johnson!”

“It’s Colin!”

“It’s mud to me now, mister, now—”

“Pep?” a small, raspy voice called from stage right. “I was just looking for you.”

Pepper’s body language changed instantly. She stood up straight, tucking a loose bit of hair that had gotten in her face behind her ear. “Hey, Ellen,” she said, giving her a shaky smile.

A frizzy-haired young girl stuck her head out from behind the curtain and smiled, showing a shining set of purple-colored braces on her teeth. “I just wanted to say you did a really good job keeping everything together backstage. If you wanted to do drama club this fall, we’d really love to have you on tech.” She stopped, looking away shyly. “Well, I would, anyway, but I’m sure everyone else would, too.”

Pepper gave Colin one last glance, and then she smiled at Ellen Michaelson. “Yeah,” she said. “I’d like that a lot.” She crossed the stage to meet the other girl, getting one last jab at Colin’s arm before disappearing backstage.

As they crossed the lobby towards the exit to the car park, where three identical black Bentleys[4] were parked, Crowley-G and Aziraphale-G saw two familiar figures exiting from a door down the hall: the leading actors who’d played the characters with their names in the abhorrent production. 

“Hey, you lot!” shouted Crowley, his immense voice carrying clearly in the emptying lobby. The men looked up, as the angel and demon came striding towards them.

“Who the hell are you, anyway?” Crowley said, pointing at the two of them. Neither looked scared or intimidated in the least, despite Crowley emanating the kind of incensed occult energy that would send any normal human running. 

“—You did a wonderful job, really,” said Aziraphale hastily, in apology for his Crowley’s brusque approach, “you know, with the material you had…” 

The two men looked at each other, then back to Aziraphale and Crowley. One had wiry silver hair, standing straight up from his head like a mad scientist, and had changed from the perfectly tailored suit he’d had on during the show into a vintage Def Leppard t-shirt and some _very_ tight leather pants. The other was blonde and practically baby-faced, and still wearing the clothes he’d worn onstage: a pale trench coat, white shirt and bow tie, and light linen trousers. 

“Who are _we?_ Don’t you know?” said the silver-haired one, and, with a smirk at his associate, lowered his shades to give the G-pair an eyeful of black-slitted yellow. 

Aziraphale-G yelped in shock. “ _Even more?!”_ groaned Crowley-G, clapping a hand to his head.

“Oh, yes,” said Aziraphale-T[5], his smooth, even face looking insufferably smug. 

“But why in Heaven or Hell would _you,_ of all people, agree to participate in such a slanderous production?” Aziraphale-G asked, deeply confused.

In unison, Crowley-T and Aziraphale-T said, with wide, matching grins: [ “We’re _professionals.”_ ](https://www.goodomensthemusical.com/sizzle-reel)

Both of the G-pair had absolutely reached their limit by now, to be entirely frank, so they turned quickly away from the overeager actors and headed outside. The sun was just starting to go down, the perfect late summer afternoon transmuting elegantly into a perfect late summer evening. 

On the way to their car, they passed the front-row pair. They were milling around next to Bentley-A, watching the last few stragglers file out and talking quietly.

“You two,” called Crowley-G. “If you ever find yourselves in our neck of the woods—” he delivered a wink so intense, it was sensed easily from behind his shades— “don’t be strangers.”

“Right,” said Crowley-A uneasily, and Aziraphale-A called, “Lovely meeting you!” without much feeling.

The G-pair moved on, and the A-pair were left with the unsettling feeling that can only come from being summarily propositioned by a clone of oneself (or, indeed, an unusually randy clone of one’s partner).

Crowley-A and Aziraphale-A looked at each other and, without a word, made their way over to the C-pair, who were the last to reach the car park, just now stepping over the median to the asphalt. 

Aziraphale-A cleared his throat as they approached. “Pardon us,” he said, “but we’re off, soon, and we didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye properly.”

“Of course not!” said Aziraphale-C, and leaned forward to offer his hand to Aziraphale-A. “Quite an afternoon we had, wasn’t it?” 

“You especially, I daresay,” said Aziraphale-A, taking his hand and shaking it warmly.

Aziraphale-C gave Aziraphale-A a bashful, knowing look. “It’s no night after Armageddon,” he said, recalling Aziraphale-A’s retelling, “but— ah, close enough, I think.” 

“It’s yours,” the other Aziraphale replied, “and it’s finally happened. That’s all you need for it to be worth celebrating.”

Crowley-C nodded to Crowley-A silently, a slight inclination of the head that nevertheless contained multitudes.

“Hey,” said Crowley-A. He held his hand out loosely, casual as can be. “Nice meeting you.”

Crowley-C shook with a confident grip, though it took him a moment for his words to find their way out of his mouth, their path eased by the touch of his Aziraphale’s hand to his side. “Thank you,” he said. “Really. For— for what you said, during intermission.”

“Yeah,” said Crowley-A, fighting his sheepishness and trying to look properly grateful for the thanks. “No problem.” He let go, stood up straight, and gave the other Crowley a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Hope it’s smooth sailing from here on out for you two.” He gave Aziraphale-C a nod. “Take care.”

“Oh, I most certainly will,” said Aziraphale-C in a loving tone, with a look to Crowley-C that caused the demon to seem like he might expire on the spot.

After saying their final goodbyes, the A-pair came together arm and arm and walked away. The C-pair watched as the two other pairs climbed into their respective Bentleys and motored off. At the edge of the car park, the cars each shimmered and disappeared, headed back, one had to suppose, to the realities from which they’d each originated. 

Crowley opened the passenger-side door of the Bentley for Aziraphale, but the angel didn’t climb in. Instead, he leaned over the door between them, and brought his face right up to Crowley’s for a gentle, soft kiss.

“Um,” said Crowley, when Aziraphale pulled away. His legs had gone to jelly, and it was only thanks to the Bentley’s solidity close at hand to lean on that he didn’t sink right down to the asphalt.

“You know, we don’t have to go home right away, my dear,” said Aziraphale. “There’s a lovely park next to the school, right over there. And the weather is just perfect for a picnic, don’t you think?” 

“But we don’t have any picnic food,” Crowley said, rather stupidly.

“Except for what’s the picnic basket,” said Aziraphale, and Crowley felt the atomic frisson of a miracle, and the unmistakable sound of a full hamper of delicacies appearing in the backseat of the car. 

“Well,” said Crowley, “I suppose that’ll have to do, then, won’t it?” 

“It will, dear. I really think it will.” 

So— they’d have their picnic, and then perhaps there’d be some more kissing. Anything beyond that was appealingly hazy, though Crowley did feel the nagging sense, after being around the back-row pair for even just a few moments, that he and Aziraphale had an awful lot of catching up to do. 

But with any luck, by the end of the evening, at the very least they’d both have forgotten all about that awful, awful play. 

* * *

1. Crowley-A, like every angel before Creation, had a hand in building the universe, and the universe he’d helped build was governed by a fundamentally Biblical view of nature and thus was limited in scope when it came to the final frontier. That said, his universe also included aliens, and the laws of magic and/or physics weren’t exactly consistent for any of the Crowleys, so it was entirely possible that this particular Crowley had just never given the idea of leaving Earth much thought.↩

2. Crowley-G was under the impression that either Aziraphale-A or Aziraphale-C had done the thwarting, and it was better for both he and Crowley-A that he didn’t know the truth.↩

3. And she heard him, naturally. Adam’s powers were still fizzing with post-production energy; the people and things around him would be feeling their effects for a few days as they wound back down to appropriate everyday levels.↩

4. At least, identical to anyone who wasn’t named Crowley. Any one of the Crowleys would have taken great offense at a 1926 Bentley being mistaken for a 1933 model, or vice versa.↩

5. For “Theater.” (Or to complete the biology joke, pick your poison.)↩

**Author's Note:**

> tfw you have to atone for your sins as the initiators of the 2020 shitscript dissemination phenomenon and you do it the only way you know how: WITH A CRACKFIC
> 
> we're on tumblr!  
> regencysnuffboxes [@crowleyraejepsen](http://crowleyraejepsen.tumblr.com)  
> attheborder [@areyougonnabe](http://areyougonnabe.tumblr.com)


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